O
odile53
Guest
I really felt the need to share what happened today:
I’m facing spinal surgery next week, and decided that I would spend this week mending fences with family members. Like so many of us, I have always had a somewhat turbulent relationship with my mother. It’s nothing particularly dramatic, just your average run of the mill, garden variety, seen one seen 'em all mother-daughter relationship. Nobody was ever truly abusive, we were both truly abrasive in the past, though.
Now, I’ve always believed it is the height of immaturity for a middle-aged person to blame their parents for their current unhappiness. Much work with my spiritual director last year, including journaling, about my relationship with my earthly mother, and many prayers to my Heavenly Mother, tells me that I have grown beyond that point now.
A small turn for the better in financial affairs put me in a good position today. I found out that Mom, who is near ninety years old and who has a back that is a worse mess than mine, is sleeping on a mattress that she and my father had planned to replace in a few months. The problem is, my dad went to his reward in 2002.
I saw that miserable lump of a mattress, and decided to do something about it. To be honest, my conscience wouldn’t let me consider not doing anything about it. And actually, right now I’m replacing the full motion waterbed mattress that my husband and I have been sleeping on. For the past few weeks, actually, R and the dog have been sleeping on the waterbed; severe back spasms have led me to stretch out on the floor most nights!
If you want to see some true drama, watch a neurosurgeon’s reaction when you tell him you’re sleeping in a waterbed, but I digress. I thought perhaps, since I had already ordered one mattress, I might get a discount on a second, but in any case it was high time Mom got new sleeping equipment. So I took her to the mattress store, and after about an hour of trying out various mattresses, and making arrangements to get her bed height properly adjusted (she is 4’10",) we placed an order.
Mom attempted to make me order a lower quality mattress repeatedly, but I could tell she really liked the “better” quality one (pillowtop viscoelastic, high coil count firm.) We ordered a low profile box spring as well, to enable her to get in and out of bed safely.
In the past I would have interpreted Mom’s attempts to get me to get the cheaper mattress as one of her crazy Indian ways of trying to make me feel guilty. Guilty for what, I don’t know, but guilty nonetheless. When she protested that the mattress was too expensive, the salesman knocked $200 off the price (probably, because I was buying two separate mattress sets.) But I understood that some healing in the relationship with Mom had already occurred when I realized that even in her diminished state, that mama bear wasn’t about to let anyone get one over on one of her cubs, even though said cub is getting pretty long in the tooth herself!
I finally told her, “Darn it all, Mom, this is an investment! I’m investing in me getting a better night’s sleep because I know you’re going to get a better night’s sleep!” So she finally gave up, and got exactly what she liked best.
I used to think that when she would brush off any attempts I made at getting her the best I could afford, she was trying to make me feel guilty about something or another. But today, no, now I see, she’s still trying to protect me, as she has always tried these past nearly sixty years.
We spent a great afternoon together: Her reminiscences were peppered with more contemporary conversation, and we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant I happened across. Nobody lost patience, nobody started giving minute directions on how to live one’s life hour by hour. nobody got into old baggage.
It was a wonderful day, to be sure.
Tonight, in the colloquy of my examen, I made sure to thank Our Lady, Jesus, and God, for such a grace-filled day.
I’m facing spinal surgery next week, and decided that I would spend this week mending fences with family members. Like so many of us, I have always had a somewhat turbulent relationship with my mother. It’s nothing particularly dramatic, just your average run of the mill, garden variety, seen one seen 'em all mother-daughter relationship. Nobody was ever truly abusive, we were both truly abrasive in the past, though.
Now, I’ve always believed it is the height of immaturity for a middle-aged person to blame their parents for their current unhappiness. Much work with my spiritual director last year, including journaling, about my relationship with my earthly mother, and many prayers to my Heavenly Mother, tells me that I have grown beyond that point now.
A small turn for the better in financial affairs put me in a good position today. I found out that Mom, who is near ninety years old and who has a back that is a worse mess than mine, is sleeping on a mattress that she and my father had planned to replace in a few months. The problem is, my dad went to his reward in 2002.
I saw that miserable lump of a mattress, and decided to do something about it. To be honest, my conscience wouldn’t let me consider not doing anything about it. And actually, right now I’m replacing the full motion waterbed mattress that my husband and I have been sleeping on. For the past few weeks, actually, R and the dog have been sleeping on the waterbed; severe back spasms have led me to stretch out on the floor most nights!
If you want to see some true drama, watch a neurosurgeon’s reaction when you tell him you’re sleeping in a waterbed, but I digress. I thought perhaps, since I had already ordered one mattress, I might get a discount on a second, but in any case it was high time Mom got new sleeping equipment. So I took her to the mattress store, and after about an hour of trying out various mattresses, and making arrangements to get her bed height properly adjusted (she is 4’10",) we placed an order.
Mom attempted to make me order a lower quality mattress repeatedly, but I could tell she really liked the “better” quality one (pillowtop viscoelastic, high coil count firm.) We ordered a low profile box spring as well, to enable her to get in and out of bed safely.
In the past I would have interpreted Mom’s attempts to get me to get the cheaper mattress as one of her crazy Indian ways of trying to make me feel guilty. Guilty for what, I don’t know, but guilty nonetheless. When she protested that the mattress was too expensive, the salesman knocked $200 off the price (probably, because I was buying two separate mattress sets.) But I understood that some healing in the relationship with Mom had already occurred when I realized that even in her diminished state, that mama bear wasn’t about to let anyone get one over on one of her cubs, even though said cub is getting pretty long in the tooth herself!
I finally told her, “Darn it all, Mom, this is an investment! I’m investing in me getting a better night’s sleep because I know you’re going to get a better night’s sleep!” So she finally gave up, and got exactly what she liked best.
I used to think that when she would brush off any attempts I made at getting her the best I could afford, she was trying to make me feel guilty about something or another. But today, no, now I see, she’s still trying to protect me, as she has always tried these past nearly sixty years.
We spent a great afternoon together: Her reminiscences were peppered with more contemporary conversation, and we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant I happened across. Nobody lost patience, nobody started giving minute directions on how to live one’s life hour by hour. nobody got into old baggage.
It was a wonderful day, to be sure.
Tonight, in the colloquy of my examen, I made sure to thank Our Lady, Jesus, and God, for such a grace-filled day.
